good for them! I used to be on a varsity football team (not a deaf football team) but we played against Florida school for deaf and blind. Man, they played really well!! We even lost to them by 2 points!

I am similarly deaf & use some special RF streaming gadgetry made by resound to use my phone & other audio equipment. I telecommute & meetings would be impossible without them.

One thing is a bluetooth clip that connects to my phone. It has a mic & works as a headset. The audio goes from the phone to the clip over bluetooth & then streams over RF to my hearing aid.

The other is a similar streamer, except that instead of bluetooth it has a mic on it and an audio input jack. My wife will wear it when we're out. She speaks into the mic & it goes straight into my hearing aids over RF.

I am deaf because of some unknown problem that my parents and docs couldn't figure out after birth. Perhaps, it was due to some high fever i had? or because my mom was really sick while she was pregnant. Or because of the meds she was on during pregnancy for her sickness?

I realized I needed to add more details to my post.

Normally, I converse verbally. So, people didn't realize that I am deaf until they see my hearing aids.

Edit: are you completly deaf? Most "deaf" people i know are able hear quite good.

So you can speak normaly? I attend a school which is for people with hearing proplems, i have nothing i am just there because it is a damn good school. Most of the deaf classes aren't able to talk, it is hard to learn when you can't hear anything.

And beside most of then are extremly loud, do you know or even care when you are loud without realising it?

I mean it is, but I know most adults associate themselves with hard of hearing or hearing impaired and most individuals who grew up with hearing loss classify themselves as hearing impaired or deaf. It's all the same shit but different variations.

Do you know any ASL or do you lip read or can you hear well enough with a cochlear or hearing aids?
I know that there is a debate if deaf children should be taught using purely oral methods, purely with sign language or a mix. What is your opinion?

Well, I lip read because I'm used to it. I do listen with my hearing aids. It's like assistive device like glasses.

I've never used sign language as a method to help me learn how to speak or learn english during my developing years. I was trained by a private speech pathologist/therapist for 12 years.

I stand on the fact that I would encourage deaf people to actually learn to talk without speech impediment because it is a great way to communicate with people. If sign language help them learn to speak orally, then ok! It shouldn't be that their preferred method of communication should be sign language.

No one in the whole world knows sign language. Sign Language is an acquired language like spanish. You can't expect to go to other country and expect them to know Spanish. English is the most universal language and everyone knows them verbally.

I believe Deaf children have the right to grow up bilingual. This means the use of sign language and being able to read and write. Trying to force a Deaf person with little to no hearing to talk is quite excessive. It is incredibly hard for a Deaf person to read lips and speak. Also, all the effort into speech therapy could be focused on other areas. I know many Deaf people who did not recieve a great education because most of their time in school was spent trying to learn how to speak. Also, learning sign language helps Deaf children receive a foundation of language during the critical language acquisition period. Teaching Deaf children sign language is extremely advantageous for them.

It is incredibly hard but do-able. If ASL can help them learn how to speak without impediment then i'm all for it. Verbal language is really big deal because i see that it's a doorway to countless possibilities. If one is stuck with ASL then it seems limited because you'll have to get oral interpreter and all that. Don't one want to be able to communicate effectively to anyone in the world?

Sorry to make this weird, but this is an AMA.
I am wanting to be a pediatrician in the future, so (here it comes) what does it feel like being deaf? I don't know how to explain nicely, (I just have to ask)

I don't feel any different. I feel I am normal as anyone except that I have this hearing impairment. Now, I am adult and I look at it as an assistive devices for my hearing impairment. I don't identify myself as a disable person because I am fully capable and independent except when it comes to phone calls. That's when reality hits me and realize i still have limitations but nothing extreme!

Yes, this helps perfectly :D
So, is the saying "If you lose one sense, your others will improve" true? And I figured that you felt like everyone else (lets be optimistic no getting annoying business calls though.)

Someone asked me that question last night. I really didn't thought of that! I would say that my attention to details and conversations are fine-tuned? I would say that my sense of touch in palpation and percussions are enhanced? I tend to be more attentive to things.

Sorry that I can't give a confident answer to your question. I am not sure if that is scientifically possible. Maybe I am wrong

I'm very late to the party but hopefully you'll still answer this question I thought of when I saw the original photo. For people who can hear, sometimes sounds can seem to get incorporated into our dreams. For example, one might hear the beeping of an alarm clock going off in real life but in their dream the beeping noise is coming from a garbage truck that beeps when it backs up to warn people. Have you ever experienced something similar with the vibration from your watch alarm?

in fact, i woke up before my alarm goes off thinking why is it not vibrating?!

I've had few dreams similar to what you mentioned. in fact, i remembered this clearly because it had happened last night. I got tazed in my arm by a passerby when i was just walking around in some sidewalk. As soon as I got tazed, i woke up to my alarm vibrating on my wrist.

Cool. So . . . (anxious because although this is AMA, it's awkward to ask personal questions) have you ever had a lover with standard hearing remark on your having special skills involving your tactile sensitivity? I've heard from other standard-hearing people with lovers who are deaf that deaf people are . . . extra awesome in the sheets.

When you read books, do you find it at all difficult to imagine/feel the intensity of descriptive words relating to sound? Ex: reading a passage about a scary situation in which the character is listening to the wind howl or the squeak of a door.

If you watch movies with CC, how do you feel about the captions about sound? Ex: "scary music intensifies" "awkward coughing (off-screen)" "violin solo"

These are serious questions - I have often wondered how a deaf or blind person's writing might be different than a hearing/seeing person's, given the limitations of experience and understanding of certain descriptive words and phrases associated to things heard or seen. Thanks for sharing! :) You are awesome for doing this AMA.

I wear hearing aids. I have been since i was a baby. So, when I read books or read CC, i read it the same way you do and thought of the sounds same way you do.

I have asked my friends about this descriptive reading. I wasn't surprised at all because I found out the way they read and think of sounds are pretty much the same way I think of them, too.

But for a deaf person who NEVER heard of any sort of sounds since birth, it will be different for that person because that person has never had experience those sounds. When they hear it for the first time, they will learn what "violin solo" sounds like after hearing it and will probably remember what it sounds like when they read "violin solo" next time.

Hope this answers your questions! let me know if you have any more! :) i'm happy to answer them!

i have sensorineural hearing loss. more than 85dB hearing loss (profound to severe)

This is siemens bte nitro SP

I have no clue what caused the hearing loss. Perhaps it happened while my mom was sick during pregnancy and the meds she took may have contributed to it. or maybe i had high fever and the heat destroyed it.

the docs don't know what happened either. Mom had no complications during birthing.

That's a good system to have. I have a dictaphone (I couldn't remember name and was thinking dictator!) to help me out, which was useful for a while. But then I realised that I can touch-type quickly enough to take notes. I usually ask for my friend's notes for a quick check.

My lecturers are very good about it (they better be since they're teaching about deafness!) So I don't really have any issues.

The only issue I had once was that I misheard a question for an assignment. I got 28% overall and the lecturer said to me that I could do it again, which is completely against university protocol. He said that he felt that happened because I didn't hear it right (which is true). I ended up getting 58%.

my professors are pretty chilled and they let me know that all the exams questions come from the notes. Our college provide notebooks that were written by the professors to be used during lecture. So, we didn't have to write our own notes except personal notes.

Some of my friends are dicks and they don't like to share because I had nothing to share. But my other friends who had borrowed notes let me copy their notes.

I have to study extra harder and keep on top of things. I never had trouble with questions because i made sure what i need to study

Do you think that the alarm clock you use is good? Does it ever fail to wake you up? I may be moving to an area that is noisy at night because of the nightlife, and I've considered putting earplugs in and using an alarm clock like this.

Not a question, but a mostly irrelevant comment relating to you being in med school. The lead plastic surgeon on the team that corrected a birth defect I had wore cochlear implants, too. If it weren't for him, I'd either be dead or wishing I were dead by now. (Not that there weren't other great surgeons who could have done the job, but you know what I mean.)

Hey man! Glad to hear your a med student. I'm an EMT and will officially be going to medical school in New York this fall. I have a story that I found extraordinarily fascinating. I think anyone who clicked on this link would find it equally interesting.

I went to a married couple's apartment this winter on a call. Husband was ill and had abdominal pain with vomiting for the past few hours so he called 911. We got to the door, knocked, and said "EMS!" like usual. No answer. Knock again. No answer. One of the neighbors came outside and told us we needed to press a special doorbell button that flashed the lights in the apartment because both the husband and wife are deaf. After the wife let us in I was thinking "great, now I have to communicate solely via handwriting with this dude at 5am." Wrong. After a couple minutes of hand waving and confusion, wife brings my partner and I to the room with the big TV and there's a woman on the TV speaking live both to my partner and I through the phone with her headset and with the pt's wife though sign language with a webcam in the patient's apartment. It was absolutely amazing. I would ask a question to the special services person, she would sign the question to the pt's wife, who would sign the question to her husband, who would sign the answer back to the wife, who would sign it back to the woman on the TV, who translated it via webcam to me on the phone! Probably the coolest use of technology for disabled people I've ever seen.

How common is this? Does every deaf person have this service in case of emergency? Even if you live with other people who have hearing, I feel like it would still be a good idea to have it in case something ever went wrong when you were alone. Also, are there similar services for deaf people for other types of emergencies? I mean, I'm assuming that if there's a fire or police is needed, they could use that system as well, but what about mundane day to day stuff---how much is this system integrated into deaf peoples' lives?

Also, what's medical school like deaf? I get that you have hearing aids and can lip read, but what about taking Hx's and doing PA's? Can you speak well and communicate with your patients and coworkers effectively? How does this affect you in the specialty you've recently matched into?

The technology they are using with the webcam and all is call Video Relay Service (VRS). They help communicate between deaf and hearing person.

Even I used a similar service called IP-Relay. It's not video but it's more of a instant messenger service where I use it to make phone calls. The relay service person talks to the phone and types it back to me and I respond back in text and then she relay the message verbally.

I don't use that anymore. It has its flaw because the hearing person would think it was a sales person on the phone. Pissed me off major time! I always have to instruct the relay person to not answer the phone with a question (it's different story and i'm getting offtopic)

but yes I am aware such technology exist. I have seen deaf people use it to communicate with other deaf people using this VRS.

I live with a hearing people. I have pretty good handle of how to listen on phone. In case of emergency, i have a backup plan. I would just call 911 and tell the person that i am deaf and this is my address. I would just text my immediate friend or family about the emergency.

I don't have a VRS because I don't know sign language. i do have a backup plan though.

I wish i could use the IP-relay services but man it's such a fuck up flawed system though. I wish there was something else better way to make business phone calls.

Medical school was hard and is still hard for me! I had to have note-takers, asked my study group for copy of notes, visit professors' office hours whenever possible to ask questions, clarify notes with professors, and practice clinical routines with friends and partners.

Taking Hx's and doing PA's was a challenge in the beginning but i found my rhythm. My colleagues knows me and see the effort that I am putting into so they are more inclined to help me make things easier by telling me other ways to manage and giving me stuff that are "in the know". Because not everything is textbook. you kind of pick it up as you go along such as routines and Hx.

Hx is a breeze for me now with all the OPQRST, it's almost second nature because i am getting used to it.

when i started rotations, i made sure i communicate with the people responsible and the attendings, residents and other clinical interns. I told them that i don't want to make things tough for them and i wanna be a team player. I was upfront with what i want and what i expect. My professors were able to help me make phone calls to some of the docs that they know at some teaching hospitals and made sure i was on track with what i was suppose to do.

you have no idea how much respect they have for others in the professions. It may seems like cut-throat competitions but in the end, everyone is looking out for each other.

I'm following my mentor's footstep so i am looking to do administration in clinical settings. He is a clinical director of several private clinics so i want to do that and be the BOSS! I feel I can get better grasp at situations being on top of the food chain.

I don't have CI but i wouldn't want them right now. When i was a baby my parents had the option to choose CI or hearing aids. I am glad they chose hearing aids because CI that time was in its infancy. CI was a new thing. There was lot of risks involved. I am sure now the risk are small but it would require lot of re-learning and re-training because the sounds you are used to are totally different.

I can totally relate to that about song lyrics. I only have moderate hearing loss but I still have problems hearing the lyrics in songs. Saying that though, it can have its advantages as it turns the vocals in songs into their own "instruments" as I can't really hear what is being said, only really the tone. It definitely makes for some interesting listening! Do you experience this?

Why wouldnt they support something that makes their life easier and puts them on an even playing field?

It's actually much more complicated than that. Not everyone can utilise an implant. For those that can, the hearing levels offered by implants varies between individuals. An implant can turn a profoundly deaf child into a severely or moderately deaf child - it doesn't level the playing field at all, though there are some advantages.

There are risks to implants - they can cause facial paralysis, for example. Also, if there's any remaining hearing in the implanted ear, that hearing has to be totally destroyed to fit an implant. So there's a choice between working with what residual hearing is there, or taking a gamble on what hearing you'll end up with post-implant.
That's aside from the complex social and cultural implications of implants.

I think the most important thing I've learned about cochlear implants is to listen to deaf people on the subject. Deaf people do not all share the same opinions on implants, and there are significant generational differences in experiences with CI and deaf education; but I think that as a hearing person, my assumptions of what makes life 'easier' for a deaf person or what a person 'should' choose must necessarily take second place to the experiences of deaf people.

that is one of the reasons i don't want to get CIs. My friend i used to know back in elementary school have had CIs then she had another one on other ear or upgraded it or something. She lost her memory due to implants. She forgot who I am =/

I was at a restaurant with the guys. There is this odd couple at another table in front of me. I was spacing out and looked at the couple conversing. I was lip-reading them. I didn't know the context but they were talking about having the wife screwing with another guy while the husband watch/video tape them. I choked on my drink that they noticed me. They got up and left.

Honestly, when i study, i like it quiet with no sounds. It really distracts me. I really don't know how people can study while listening to music. Sometime, if i am working on a project or essay, then i listen mostly to EDM. that's my kind of ambient. I like it upbeat to get me in the mode!

No question here, just another fellow deaf redditor saying hi! You and I are pretty similar with our deafness. I also wear a hearing aid & speechread as my primary form of communication.

I'm also learning ASL because I have a lot of deaf friends who sign only or primarily & try to accommodate me, so I figure the least I can do is return the favor.

I think that whatever politics & negativity that separates deaf/hard-of-hearing people from each other & the rest of the world should stop. We all have one thing in common: our ears don't work as they should. How we choose to deal with individually that should be accepted between us all.

lol it's ok. Actually, i have been given this option early on but i didn't want to do it because of the risks involved and the re-training of all the sounds. I have re-learn all the sounds. Also, there could be chances that it could further damage my hearings. I could lose long term memory. CIs are better dealt with kids at very young age like babies.

Fair enough, I have a cochlear implant put in when I was 13 in 2003. Like you, I was worried about risk of losing my hearing even further but it dramatically improved my hearing and memory still good as ever, as for sounds, you don't necessarily re-learn just addition to what you can hear already. Only downside is friends sticking teaspoons on my head when I'm not looking <_<

total bliss! people have no idea! not even able to hear your own heartbeat.

I read somewhere that a normal person was put in some vacuumed-silent room with bunch of padding or something. The person freaks out because the person was able to hear the heartbeat in that room, the breathing and stuff.

My father had the same problems you had as a child and had been deaf since his problems. But like you never let then hold him back and the devices fir the deaf are amazing. I love turning all the lights out in the house and calling the house to watch the lights flicker lol.

Hi there, after I saw your post I found your solution to my problem, it's a regular thing for me to sleep for 30 mins after my alarm goes off, it goes off every 2 mins, problem is I'm moving into an apartment, I don't think my neighbors wanna hear an alarm at 5am for a half hour, is there a particular model you'd recommend? Thanks, I really appreciate it.

very deaf.. yeah..
Maybe some details .. what exactly do you hear?
Generally the problem I have with deaf people is that as far as I know there are varying degrees of deafness.. and most hearing people would assume.. that when you say you are deaf.. then that means for us.. that you hear no sound whatsoever.